Asian Studies

Being widely acclaimed to be authors masterpiece, Chikamatsus The Love Suicides at Amijima, directly confronts the question of what it means to die in love-suicide.  Along the lines of the play, Chikamatsu portrays this everlasting passion They swore in the last letters they exchanged that if only they could meet, that day would be their last (Chikamatsu, 1997, p.178).  Although Chikamatsu Monzaemon composed The Love Suicides at Amijima back in the eighteenth century, theme of love has been already perceived beyond the image of a body consumed by the fires of love (Chikamatsu, 1997, p.178).  From the critical perspective, the issues raised by Chikamatsu in The Love Suicides at Amijima reflect the ultimate and largely universal nature of a human embedded between two driving forces, libido and morbido.  Although this statement constitutes a broad speculation of Freuds psychoanalytical idea, if examined critically a desire to love and be loved is deeply rooted in human nature.  Moreover, themes and illustrations of forbidden love, rejected libido and suicide are scattered across western and eastern art and literature from Shakespeares Romeo and Juliet to Akira Kurosawas cinematography and thus are universal.

From the critical perspective, love constitutes one of a few truly universal characteristics of human nature regardless of ones culture.  For instance, 1 Corinthians depicts love as not rude, not self-seeking, not easily angered, that keeps no record of wrongs (1 Corinthians 1313).  Chikamatsu explains that even the love of a prostitute is deep beyond measure its a bottomless sea of affection that cannot be emptied or dried (Chikamatsu, 1997, p.171). Being portrayed as not the ideal tradesman of Osaka and rather one of the unsuccessful members of a profession that demanded a high level of diligence and devotion, Chikamatsus Jihei is ultimately devoted to his passionate but hopeless love to Koharu.  Practically, Jihei is surrounded by love love between man and woman, husband and wife, father and children, younger brother and elder brother. He tries to control his overpowering love for Koharu - in fact, a part of him desires nothing more than to live up to what society expects of him as a husband and father.  Torn between the two opposing worlds of duty (giri) and private desires (ninjo), Jihei is forced over and over to reject his home and family.  Like any other human nature, Jiheis nature is impulsive and changeable.  He begs Gozaemon, Osans father Please, let me stay with Osan. I promise that even if I become a beggar or an outcast and must sustain life with the scraps that fall from other peoples chopsticks (Chikamatsu, 1997, p.195).  From the critical western cultural perspective, in his quickness of tongue, his impulsiveness and his fear of being shamed in public, Jihei represents a typical representative of males so vividly portrayed by western female songwriters like Joni Mitchell Be careful now - when you court young men,  They are like the stars  On a summer morning,  They sparkle up the night,  And theyre gone again,  Daybreak - gone again (Mitchell, 1977).  In the end, Jiheis love for Koharu makes a double suicide seem as the only course opened to him.  Jihei is caught into moral debt but since love keeps no record of wrongs, he chooses love.

Perhaps traditionally for the literature and cultural reception, women constitute the brighter side of human nature, and Chikamatsu follows this same pattern illustrating Koharu and Osan in The Love Suicides at Amijima. Chikamatsus Osan is a model wife, according to the Confucian ideal of the samurai class.  Practically, she is much more than the ideal woman, passive and obedient, as defined by the feudal code.  She is modest, devoted to her unfaithful husband, and even a better merchant than he is.  Osan manages both home and the business without complaint, and considers no sacrifice too great in order to maintain his reputation in the community. When the interests of her husband are at stake, she takes the initiative - she writes to Koharu and pleads for Jiheis life. She also pawns some of her clothes to raise money to pay the bills.  Moreover, she is the one who makes the decision that Koharu be saved and the one who finds the necessary means.  Traditionally to eastern tradition, Osan is a woman perfected to the point of incredibility.  Western tradition describes love as patient and kind, one that does not envy...does not boast, .. is not proud (1 Corinthians 1313).  In accord with this tradition, Chikamatsus Osan out of love for her husband and duty to her two children, asks Koharu to give up Jihei.  She has to overcome her grief, as well as her jealousy, and to pretend she has never been deceived.  Koharu, in return, has to transcend her love and promise to leave Jihei, for the sake of his family.  She realizes how painful love could be and, even though she wishes to be loved, she forces herself to suppress that desire.  For Koharu, the happiness of the beloved is precious, and the highest proof of love is to say nothing, to efface herself and be forgotten.  In speaking of her, Osan says When a woman - I no less than another - has given herself completely to a man, she does not change (Chikamatsu, 192).  It is typical of Chikamatsus attitude (and attitudes expressed by western writers, for instance, Leo Tolstoy in his Resurrection) toward women, whether wife or courtesan, that is they who exhibit the greater virtue and uprightness.  In The Love Suicides at Amijima, expressing the duty to a fellow woman, that both Osan and Koharu feel towards each other, Osan says to Jihei I felt so unhappy that I wrote a letter, begging her as one woman to another to break with you... She answered that she would give you up, though you were more precious than life itself, because she could not shirk her duty to me (Chikamatsu, 1997, p. 192). Nevertheless, when she realizes that Koharu is about to die alone, Osan melts in tears and asks her husband to go and save her.  She cries Alas Id be failing in the obligations I owe her as another woman if I allowed her to die. Please go to her at once. Dont let her kill herself (Chikamatsu, 1997, p.192).  However, when Chikamatsus audience is almost relieved from the pressure of this drama, the real tragic story of forbidden love unfolds.

From the critical perspective, the lovers, Jihei and Koharu, make the choice before the curtain opens - after that, every thought and act of theirs is on this course. They are only expecting the chance to meet and to kill themselves.  However, the couple, as well as the audience, has to wait for completion of the known fact. Chikamatsu makes their goal extremely difficult to reach as he first blocks all their attempts to meet and die for love, and later, during michiyuki, constantly reminds them of the consequences of their act.  Chikamatsu makes those consequences painful and unpleasant - the lovers are never allowed to turn their backs on this world in order to look only to a bright future in the next life.  According to western tradition, forbidden love usually contains some tragical element in itself, and so it does in The Love Suicides at Amijima its michiyuki is a journey through a purgatorial realm where the lovers are forced to suffer the outcome of passion.
The long tradition of the journey passage, which grew so well on the Japanese soil, brings forth its finest product in the conclusion of The Love Suicides at Amijima. This crucial journey to death follows the typical pattern of Chikamatsus plays - a metaphorical movement down to hell, up to death at dawn, and a culminating vision of happiness in paradise.  As the lovers escape from the Quarter, Chikamatsu describes them forging forward, where an inch ahead are the tortures of hell (Chikamatsu, 1997, p. 201).  In the cold night, two lovers set out seeking death during their journey, they triumph over a thousand hesitations and, at its end, reach the salvation.

    Reading Chikamatsus The Love Suicides at Amijima, one may wonder why author is so humanistic towards his heroes and human nature in general.  The answer perhaps is embedded in general belief expressed by both eastern and western cultures in good origin of a man.  If assessed critically, the phrase ten no ami derived from Shinju tenno Amijima (The Love Suicides at Amijima) refers to the statement of Taoist canon, according to which Heavens net is wide Coarse are the meshes, Yet nothing slips through.  This suggests an idea of justice in which any deeds on this earth, good or bad, will return to the doer.  It is a concept of retribution by which good will infallibly be rewarded with good, and evil with evil.  The theme of the divine punishment (bachi) that awaits Chikamatsus heroes, who can not avoid suffering and death in return for their acts, runs through the entire play.  Simultaneously, the title refers also to another net, chikai no ami (vows net), which is clarified by the lines of The Love Suicides at Amijima The tale is spread from mouth to mouth. People say that they who were caught is the net of Buddhas vow immediately gained salvation and deliverance, and all who hear the tale of the Love Suicides at Amijima are moved to tears (Chikamatsu, 1997, p.170).  This Buddhist phrase (chikai no ami) is found in Japanese classical poetry and drama and refers to the saving net in the vow of Amida Nyorai to help any and all who call his name.  Chikamatsu evidently supports the salvation path for his heroes, as at the moment of the greatest suffering. Koharu expresses her faith in a happy future together, based on her devotion to the Lotus Sutra and on Buddhas mercy. With her declaration of faith, they cross the Kyo (Sutra) and Onari Bridges (Chikamatsu, 1997, p.201). The journey turns upward and they enter the merciful world of Amida.  In this, last part of the michiyuki, faith in the Lotus Sutra guides the pair into Amidas saving net. Even though their suicides are opposite to the path of Buddhism, their journey is directed towards Amidas Paradise. Jihei and Koharu have symbolically become Buddhas - their suffering led them to the other shore (nirvana) and to the resting place of Amijima.

In his The Love Suicides at Amijima Chikamatsu examines the complexity of human nature.  According to Chikamatsu, evidently there is no earthly solution for the conflict of forbidden love, of giri and ninjo.  In the case of Jihei and Koharu and similarly to other instances vividly depicted in western literature, this unending dilemma between the socially correct behavior based on reason, and natural instincts, including libido and morbido, concluded with the choice of death.  Interestingly, in Chikamatsuian humanistic terms, death has existential nature.   The power of Chikamatsus The Love Suicides at Amijima emanates from the theme of the merciless and existential confrontation with death - its central crisis is not whether the lovers will commit suicide, but when it will happen.  Since the whole drama stands on the threshold of death, its dramatic tension lies in lovers hazardous waiting for the chance to die and thus existentially evolve.